Do you remember you were once a child?
by lolsaj
Summary: Sakura is all mixed up. She's bored with her life and doesn't feel like she's grown up at all. Until she reconnects with Kakashi. KakaSaku.
1. Alive

Do you remember you were once a child?

Hi, folks! This is my first real fanfiction, let alone my first kakasaku one. The premise of this story is pretty standard; a budding relationship between Kakashi and Sakura. It's not just a Sakura thing, it's a mutual attraction. Sakura is 22, Kakashi is 36. Sakura's sort of got this whole theme of childhood going on; as she sees herself as too young in most aspects, so she makes up for it by being a practical old maid in action. Kakashi both agrees and disagrees. They have a complex relationship. Although it might seem so from this story, I am absolutely not a fan of Sakura. As I've read the manga further, she just seems like a really spoiled little kid. This fic resides upon the premise that she's much more mature, and she has far greater skill, physically and emotionally, than her 16 year old self has.

This story was inspired almost entirely by the song Pretty Baby, by Entrance. You should listen to it, I think of the whole song as a conversation between Kakashi and Sakura. It explains my phrasing, I think, and it's also just a really cool song. It's a little weird and complex (the whole album, Prayer of Death, is weird, psychedelic folk music) but still really cool.

Thanks for reading, make sure to review with some constructive criticism, I'm always eager to edit my work!

Just so you know, I don't own Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto does!

* * *

Chapter one : Alive

In Sakura Haruno's opinion, it was never too early to wake up. Even when it was so early that the sunlight didn't break through her flimsy curtains. Or so early that no birds chirped yet in the dark.

Because, to Sakura Haruno, waking up meant being alive. Waking up meant being a survivor of another mission, another struggle, another day of living, another day of getting by. Another day of the same life.

Even if it was five in the morning.

Sakura stretched forward, the long curve of her spine forming a question mark as she touched her toes, her head bowed, her hair wild. She opened her eyes, both dull with sleep and bright with light, and promptly rolled out of bed. She wasn't a sucker for long, meaningless moments – even the most comfortable ones. Her scratchy carpet was cool to the touch on the soles of her feet, the too-thick, outdated shag weave threading between her toes. She moved into the linoleum floored hallway and padded quietly past the door of her snoring roommate into the tiny bathroom.

If there was one thing Sakura truly regretted about her life , it was her decision to continue rooming with Ino. The pig really was a pig, and Sakura spent more time cleaning their shared apartment than living in it. Not that she really had much of a life to live, between bustling from mission to mission to hospital duty to sake with Tsunade to mission. She was lucky she had garnered the tiny three-day vacation she was starting – thank the gods – today.

She was exhausted, despite her early awakening. She needed this break. She needed time to herself, not to sleep, but just to live outside of her work and role as a kunoichi, for just once.

Space to breathe.

Sakura slipped into her (sadly also shared) bathroom, flipping up the light switch as she closed the door. She winced at her face, at the dark bags surrounding her eyes and the long, ragged split ends of her pastel hair. She pinched the bridge of her nose before channeling chakra into the blue crescent moons of her dark circles, the strands of energy bringing life to strained capillaries and thin skin.

Sakura pulled hard on the rusty handles of her shower water supply before hopping under the burning hard spray; the one good thing about her ancient apartment complex was the water heater. That, and the practically non-existent rent. Sakura scrubbed at her hair and body, running her hands over lean muscle and modest curves. She used mismatched shampoo and body wash – one cherry blossom pink, the other sweet jasmine and honeysuckle. She always smelled like a bundle of flowers, which Ino always said was bad luck for her love life, because all those flower meanings – innocence and sensuality and vicious clinginess – clashed horribly, especially in the context of her personality.

But that was ok, because Sakura didn't believe in that sort of bullshit. Especially when Ino was involved. And so she meandered out of the shower and into the hallway, dripping wet and naked and cold. By now, dawn had broken, and pale light filtered through the apartment windows. Speaking of Ino, it was a Friday, meaning the Pig had hospital duty for the next three days. Meaning – Sakura did a little naked dance in front of her bedroom door – she would have the apartment to herself for the next three days. At that moment, she was happy that shinobi didn't have the standard five-day workweek. She thanked the gods for random schedules and post-bloody-mission breaks.

It wasn't that she didn't like Ino, she mused as she shimmied into her underwear and bra (no wrappings for her!), she just valued privacy and quiet and peace of mind. Which were impossible to attain when you lived with busty, loud, loud, obnoxious, loud, gossipy blonde woman.

Sakura slunk into the kitchen to make tea and toast and hoped hard to the heavens that Ino wouldn't encourage her to hit the bars and "find a real man" with her that evening. Veritably every night (not just shared weekends, the woman was that earnest) since Sakura's 21st birthday – which had been a disaster of epic proportions, thanks to none other than the blonde loudmouth herself – had been a struggle of going out or staying in.

Sakura snorted as she filled the kettle with water and set it on the flaming gas stove.

"I'm a ninja, not a little girl," she murmured. When Sakura thought about crushes, she thought about being twelve years old and sixteen years old and longing for Sasuke and knowing deep, deep in her heart she would never ever make him want her back. Or make him come back. When Sakura thought about love, she thought about Naruto and being best friends and worrying and worrying about the safety of her teammates and her now-dead mother and father. Sakura didn't need love from a boyfriend, but Ino did. She was just projecting her wants onto Sakura, that was the polite thing to do.

"I'm not a child," she said, she whispered into the morning and the teakettle. "I'm not lonely," she said, she soothed her nerves and her mind; even though she absolutely was lonely.

Sakura sat at her stained wood table (she bought that table by herself, with her own money, it was _hers_) in her half of a tired, lonely kitchen in a lonely apartment at six o'clock in the morning. She sat and stared into her old mug of steamy green tea and at the tiny specks of tea leaf at the bottom – all clustered together into a blobby face that stared right back at her.

Into her soul.


	2. Friday night, in the Kingdom of Doom

Oh, wow! I'm so happy I got so many reviews, and all in one day, too! I hope you enjoyed reading the first chapter as much as I liked writing it. Just so you know, anything that may be incorrect grammar-wise is stylistic in purpose. Actually, I really just like to write like that, it makes it super-fun to do so. I hope I get Kakashi's demeanor right in this part. And I also really hope Sakura doesn't seem too foolish here, either. She's just sort of supposed to be quirky. Even though in 500+ chapters of manga she's never seemed very quirky at all, just a little volatile.

Let's just pretend Sakura is as cool as I want her to be!

I don't own Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto does.

* * *

Chapter Two : Friday night, in the kingdom of doom.

"Ino, I don't want to go out. Especially not in… that."

Ino wrinkled her nose and scrunched up her face into that what-are-you-saying? expression she was so, so good at. She shook her outstretched arm at Sakura one more time – the one brandishing the tiny scrap of black satin she wanted her to wear.

"Don't be such a stick in the mud, Sakura! This is the first actual weekend you've been free on in, like, months," she whined. "Your social life is _so_ dead. I mean, you never go out when you have hospital work the next day – which is _every _day – so you might as well go out and have one fun night while it still suits your morals. This is an occasion of ridiculously important importance! We should be celebrating that! But that would defeat the purpose. Hm. Just come on! "

Ino was very, very good at pushing all of Sakura's bad buttons. She knew Sakura was liable to lose it whenever she rambled on and on and happen to touch on the point that her life was incredibly boring and that she never had any sex and passed on the suggestion that she never had any fun.

Not that Sakura thought that was true at all. Nope.

Ino examined the fingernails on her free hand without concern, still waggling the shiny smooth dress in Sakura's direction.

A vein throbbed in Sakura's forehead. She briefly – _very _briefly, mind you – pondered the consequences of slaughtering a pig in a rented apartment room. She only held herself back on the thought of losing the hefty deposit that Ino hadn't contributed to.

She snatched the black dress from Ino with a horrific snarl.

"_Fine._ I'll come with you. But!" she hissed, seeing Ino's _far_ too pleased expression widen even further. "Only if you promise not to try to set me up with anyone. Or try to make me drink anything. Or try to get me to dance with you. Or anyone else. Or have someone else we know try to convince me to do anything else – or the above – either."

Ino's cornflower eyes glittered maliciously. "Deal," she smirked, sticking her hand out.

Sakura shook it and knew the second the skin of their palms touched that she was screwed, Ino-planned or not. She could smell some loophole she'd missed from a mile away. She span on her naked heel out of the tiny living area – the room big enough only to hold a couch, a dinky television on wheels, a vase and a coffee table – with an angry harrumph, slamming the door to her bedroom.

Maybe it would have worked out better to kill Ino. Even if they did get their deposit back, the Pig would surely demand "her half".

Ino chuckled. She was only slightly impressed. Sakura's fiery temper had barely surfaced, meaning that she was simply too restless to refuse a night out. She shook her head and pushed back her own chair, moving to get dressed herself.

Sakura didn't like this dress. She didn't like this dress at all, in fact. It wasn't a matter of the style – because she was so small-breasted, strapless looked good on her no matter what. Or the length, even if it wasn't as long as she had hoped it would be. It didn't nearly reach her fingertips, even when she'd scooted it down as low as she could without her pint-sized boobs oozing out the top. Or the plainness, she liked unembellished and simple clothing, it made her think of elegance. Or the tightness, or the cut, or the slightly shiny fabric that should have made her stomach look fat but didn't.

Sakura just didn't look good in black. She was too fair skinned and small-framed. Black swamped her and made her look tiny – and she already had the figure of a fourteen year old. She looked like a kid, like a teeny-bopper in her older sister's dress. She looked sick and pale and like a little fool, and she didn't want to go out at all. She wanted to melt out of her dress and into the carpet, or, better yet, into her favorite pajamas and onto the couch with a gallon of ice cream and a soap opera.

But then Ino span into her room like a hurricane in a flouncy turquoise halter dress that was even shorter and tighter than hers, her boobs bouncing and her hair in curlers.

"That looks good, Forehead," she appraised. "I'm glad I rescued it from the clearance rack, I knew it would suit you."

Sakura moaned. "Ino, I look so young. Black has always looked bad on me. And it makes my hair look like a candy store. You backstabber."

"Oh, come on, Sakura! It's black! _The_ classic color!" Ino waved her hands around her face like a windmill. "Every woman needs a sexy black dress to wear, don't be such a downer."

Sakura mumbled something along the lines of "terrible friends" and "incredible sales".

Ino steered the pink-haired woman into her own room. "I mean, you don't even have anything else on, you know? Shoes make the outfit, in my opinion."

She blathered away about how the shades of the less important flowers in a bouquet were meant to bring out the beauty of the main flower while she rifled through her closet. Which was absolutely full of impractical shoes.

Sakura inched towards a pair of plain black pumps that Ino had thrown behind her in her rampage. She didn't want any attention, honestly. She didn't _need _any. She could play Ino's supporting flower any day.

She had her left foot settled comfortably into its home for the night when the remaining shoe was ripped out of her hand and its twin off her foot.

"Ino-pig!" she screeched at the blonde.

"Oh, shut it, will you?" Ino rolled her eyes at her friend's scorching temper. "I'm not letting you tramp around in black shoes and a black dress. That's so absolutely _boring_, Sakura."

She patted her hair, slightly ruffled from Sakura's blazing gaze, back into curling perfection.

Sakura's eye twitched at the mention of "boring", and a blush flared across her china-doll skin at the phrase "tramping around".

Ino rolled her eyes again, the motion exacerbated by her pale eyebrows rising to meet her equally pale hairline. "Don't be such a prude. And try these on." Sakura was shoved a pair of deep, deep indigo-purple heels. The shiny patent leather yielded a warped image of Sakura all hidden in the end of the color spectrum and made her big forehead even bigger.

Sakura sighed and pulled on the heels. Who was she trying to impress? Herself? Some unknown man?

It's not like she would. So she stopped caring. She looked down at her feet and at her chipped red nail polish through the tiny peep-toe of the pump.

Yeah, nothing to impress.

She heaved herself onto her feet and wobbled just slightly. She minced forward, the four inch heels seeming like stilts to legs used to flat ninja sandals.

"See, Sakura? You look great! I told you, shoes are the most important!" Ino gushed and gushed and gushed some more, her words the pus from a freshly lanced boil. She pushed Sakura more, this time into the bathroom.

In the time it took for Sakura to heal one tiny broken, no, fractured, finger bone – or possibly even less – Ino had swung a simple silver charm necklace around Sakura's throat, and brushed black eyeliner and mascara around her green-bottle eyes, and painted candy flavored lip gloss onto her pink-petal lips, and gathered and braided her long pink tresses into a sloppy – but still nice and elegant – French braid.

"Done!" She grinned, turning on her strappy silver stilettoed heel – when had she put those on? – and pulling out her curlers as she left the cramped bathroom.

She was halfway out of the door, clutch and house key in hand, before she realized Sakura was still in the bathroom. Ino walked back into the apartment, her heels making high clack-clacking noises against the linoleum.

"You know," Ino started. "I'm ready to go. And if we don't head out now, all the good places'll get crowded."

Sakura sighed and looked up from tapping her fingers against the sink bowl. Ino's makeup was already done. She brushed past her roommate and grabbed the only real purse she had – a silly red leather thing not much bigger than a few paperback books on a long, thin strap – from her room.

"Then, let's go."

Sakura's pumps made hollow thunk-thunks against the linoleum, and those sounds were about as solid as her resolve.

* * *

Spun gold and strawberry ice cream walked into a bar. Konoha was no tiny town – ninja _village_ was an inappropriate moniker – but it wasn't exactly a burgeoning metropolis, either. So, it really shouldn't have been such a surprise that there were familiar faces lining the bar and the small tables and the dance floor. It shouldn't have been a nasty shock to Sakura's gut to see familiar hair and a rowdy waltz caused by some old chuunin friend and well-known barks of laughter and shouts of recognition.

Ino scuttled off to a table in a far corner of the room to sit with another third of her old, old team with one fast are-you-gonna-be-ok? glance at Sakura.

Sakura was embarrassed. She was standing in the big, crowded room with no bubbly friend to hang off of, too boring to keep even someone who knew her well occupied. She considered slinking out the way she'd come, but went to the bar instead, sliding into one of the swiveling vinyl stools.

"Warm sake, please," she requested from the ruddy bartender. She'd picked up a taste for the drink during the later of her long years as apprentice to Tsunade, much to the chagrin of Shizune.

She wheeled about slightly, the very tips of her shoes brushing the rungs of the stool. She span in the limited 90 degrees that bar-stool ball bearings allowed before she realized her sake had come and she looked eight and silly.

She stared sadly down at her tiny porcelain cup. She wanted to drown herself in it, but she downed it in one gulp instead. This isn't so bad, she chided herself. You're just being a big baby. People go to bars to drink, you don't have to make it about getting hit on. I mean, bars aren't for getting hit on. Originally, people just came here to -

Her positive, historic thinking was rudely interrupted by a call of "Hey, Pinky!" from over her shoulder. Some nameless chuunin or lower-jounin inched a hand onto her bare shoulder, his forehead protector reflecting the dim lights of the bar. Some silly, plain-faced teenager or early, newborn twentysomething taking advantage of the fact that most establishments in ninja villages didn't care about the age of its drinkers.

"Why don't you come and join me and my friends? Over there, in that booth. We could use some young company, and you look pretty lonely, babe," he smirked down her bodice. Which was stupid, Sakura thought, because she was probably about as well endowed as he was.

"Who said she was alone?" asked a smooth, deep, familiar voice. A warm, gloved hand smoothed up her bare upper back and Kakashi Hatake sat down in the stool next to her.

One massive brick wall of a libido killer of a cock block of a sweet savior in Kakashi Hatake. That wasn't something she'd ever thought she would experience.

"She's too old for you, anyways," his one eye creased, and he gave a friendly wave and a not-so-friendly spin inducing shove to the anonymous and now disgruntled fellow. "Bye-bye!"

"You shouldn't say anything about being too old, sensei," she scoffed.

"Just looking out for one of my old favorite students!" His eye creased again – ignoring her quip, even more of an upside-down v than ever.

He looked the same as ever. The one enormous shock of silver-bright hair and dark grey eye. He was dressed in his flak jacket and ninja pants – he looked like he'd just come from a mission. He probably had, she mused. He worked like a dog, even if he acted the lazy man.

He still wore his silly mask.

"You only ever had three students, Kakashi," she muttered at length into her sake cup. "Would you like some?" She gestured towards her porcelain bottle.

"Drinks? On my student? Oh, absolutely!" His eye was so tightly closed and acutely angled now it was like the corner of a sheet of crisp paper.

Sakura rolled her eyes and motioned for the bartender to bring over another cup for sake. As Kakashi filled his cup, she piped;

"I haven't seen you in a long while, Kakashi. Where've you been, some long mission?"

He eye-creased some more and took a swig of sake through his mask. He looked like a cat grinning. She wanted so badly, even after all these years, to look under his mask.

"A better question to be asked is; where've you been, Sakura?"

* * *

Kakashi really didn't know why he felt so compelled to interfere. It _was _Sakura, and he knew she could take care of herself. Probably even better than he could.

But she was attracting a lot of casual glances. And stares and ogles, too. It was a sight to see, little Sakura Haruno dressed up.

Though, if he used his proper head, she really wasn't little at all anymore.

She looked like a rainbow. Her bright, bright pink hair and jade eyes and vermillion purse and shiny shoes that looked like a dark blue all winked around a smooth sheath of black. And her long, long, lean pale arms and legs flowed out of it and twitched with power in each movement. And when he looked closely, he could see a narrow silver chain hanging from her delicate neck and the small charm – some flower, he thought – resting just above her breasts.

Not that he was thinking about her breasts when some insolent squid sauntered over to her and wrapped an arm around her and murmured something into her ear. Nor when he wandered over to her – not with purpose, either – and blocked that man's advances quicker than Sakura could've punched him through the door.

And he really wasn't – he wasn't, really – thinking about any parts of her body as he leaned across the bar and talked to her and shared a bottle of sake with her.

Especially not her breasts, and the low, low, probably _pulled _low dress that covered them.

* * *

Sakura's face wrinkled a little bit at Kakashi's countering question.

"I've been in Konoha, where else? I work at the hospital and go on missions and train and research. I do shinobi things."

Kakashi nodded sagely. "It is wise for the shinobi to do only what his job is and never have any fun."

Sakura agreed distractedly before blinking rapidly and looking affronted and shaking her head with a thousand nononos compressed into three tiny seconds.

"Hey!" She snapped. "I do too have fun!"

"In settings outside of the workplace?" Kakashi queried, looking at the ceiling.

Sakura harrumphed quietly. Kakashi chuckled.

"Ah, Sakura. You remind me too much of a young me."

Sakura raised her eyebrows at him and waved to order another bottle of sake, the first was practically empty.

"You've got a huge stick up your ass because you think being a shinobi is all work, Sakura," Kakashi's eye creased tight in preparation.

Sakura spewed a mouthful of – rather expensive – sake onto the wood of the bar. The bartender didn't look twice, just passed his dirty rag over the wet spot before moving on. Kakashi was happy she was paying.

"I… I have not got a stick up my ass!" Sakura spluttered. "I just… I enjoy my job! I like working at the hospital!"

"And that's fine, Sakura," Kakashi held up his palms as a method of diffusing peace and, if need be, self defense and protection from harm. "Just saying, you shouldn't pass up your friends and youth because you're buried neck deep in the work you love.

I was just like that when I was a few years younger than you," Kakashi said. "And I had absolutely no fun until I relaxed a bit. What's there to prove by not doing what you really want to do?"

To his surprise, instead of stoking her up higher with his remark, she burst like a too-full hot air balloon and slumped low in her seat. She sighed.

"Ino's right, I'm absolutely no fun," she muttered into another cup of sake. "I just didn't want to seem like such a kid. I thought taking my work more seriously would fix that."

Kakashi felt a little perturbed at that remark. He certainly wasn't prepared to have his one female student get all weepy on him, no matter how beautiful of a woman she was. He downed more sake – the last of their second bottle, they really came too small – and put a comforting hand around her shoulders.

"You've always been one of the most mature people I know," he said. And he said that mostly truthfully. "You were the least childish of team seven, yeah?"

Sakura nodded dumbly. The two sat in amiably uncomfortable silence. They drank more sake.

Abruptly, Sakura got up to leave. She pushed her stool away from the bar with a little too much force, nearly flying backwards. She swung her long legs onto the floor of the bar, and wobbled on the too-tall heels of her shoes.

Kakashi watched her in quiet amusement. "Let me help you home, Sakura."

Sakura's brow furrowed. "Pig's got the key, where'dshego?"

Kakashi assumed this Pig was her roommate, the blonde Yamanaka girl. Who happened to be nowhere in the vicinity of the bar. He glanced down at Sakura to gauge her reaction. The petite pink-haired woman was scowling at an empty table far away.

"Where'm I supposed to sleep?" She slurred very slightly, both (barely) drunk and tired. "She's got the key to the complex and the room, can't get in without 'em. No night clerk."

"Break in?" Kakashi suggested.

"We'd lose our deposit, hmph, _my _deposit," supplied the sobering Sakura. The mention of the deposit made her scowl further. "And Ino'll be out all night, banging some dude. Or dudes."

"Just come to my apartment," Kakashi supplied.

Sakura gave him a dead look. "I'm not sleeping with you, Kakashi." The thought made her blush (barely!) and think about naked senseis and little pug dogs.

Kakashi's eye crunched up tight and wallowed in some very pleasant imagery. "Of course not! Just stay the night, it's better than sitting outside your building until morning."

"Oh, yeah," it seemed to dawn on Sakura that not going home with Kakashi would mean sleeping outside.

She could always have roomed with another friend of hers – a _girl _friend of hers – but something made her want to rub this in Ino-Pig's face. Rub a handful of I-slept-with-Kakashi and a dash of lemon juice right into her perky nose. Even if she didn't _sleep_ with him. Ino didn't have to know that.

Ha, she'd show the Pig what she really knew. Sakura Haruno was no two-bit twelve year old nor was she a sassy whore! She could sleep with whoever the hell she wanted, the hottest piece of –

"Sakura, you're drooling and I don't want you to fall asleep and drown in it, so I'll take that for an 'oh, yes, thank you so much senpai, I'm most honored to be allowed to sleep at your apartment'."

Sakura snorted – and she certainly was not drooling – and nodded.

"Sure, sure. Off we go, off we go."

And they went, two vague forms, one tall, one short, one drunk, one pretty close.

* * *

Thanks for reading, guys! Just as a note, my updates will generally never happen within one day of each other. The only reason this happened this time is because these first several parts of the story have been written for a long, long time and I'm just now getting to the publishing part. I'll try to update pretty regularly, about once a week.


	3. one inch from the edge of this bed

I don't like this chapter as much as I liked the other two. It's a little silly, but I promise the whole story won't take on this tone. Maybe. I'm still working it out. I may come back to it and edit it, the latter half seems a tad rushed to me, but maybe that's just me! The next chapter will be either shorter or later, mostly because I haven't started it yet.

Anyways, keep reading, guys! Review it if you liked it!

I don't own Naruto, that's Masashi Kishimoto!

* * *

Chapter Three: one inch from the edge of this bed

Kakashi lived, quite literally, one city block from Sakura's apartment. If Sakura had been one tiny, tiny bit less tired, she would've exclaimed beyond belief. But she was _tired_ – she'd spent the day cleaning her apartment before the pig had trashed it by simply existing, and the rest of it fighting off evil perverts – and only grunted when her apartment building came and went from her field of vision and, minutes later, Kakashi's came around the bend.

Upon entering the lobby, Sakura observed that, while his building was around the same age as hers – ancient – it was incredibly immeasurably nicer. No terrible linoleum in the lobby or shag weave in some hideous olive shade going up the crumbling stairs. There was even an elevator!

"'M so envious of you…" Sakura mumbled into Kakashi's armpit (he'd tucked her head away under his shoulder for safekeeping).

Kakashi chuckled and half-guided, half-pulled her towards the old elevator, past the winking night clerk seated at the lobby desk. Oh, he wished.

And then he snorted, in his mysterious and dignified way, and remembered he was holding Sakura. He pushed the button for the fourth floor and thought and thought on the bumpy ride up.

* * *

"Kakashi, your apartment looks like a coffin."

He was only slightly affronted by that, even when he knew it was a perfectly true observation. It was slightly larger than Sakura's and Ino's shared dominion, but looked markedly bigger due to the ridiculous lack of furnishings.

His kitchen was bare of everything but the basics of bachelor living; refrigerator, oven and stove, sink and dishwasher, tiny kitchenette set with one chair. Cabinets and a pantry door tucked into the corner. The windowsill was bare.

And the kitchen was the most well-furnished room that Sakura could see; Kakashi's living room consisted of an even dinkier than her's and Ino's television set on a fiberboard box and a ragged easy chair placed before it. The walls were lined with dark-wood bookcases but for the small square of a window, but Sakura didn't really think of those as furnishings.

"It is absolutely nothing like a coffin, Sakura, don't be ridiculous," said the imperturbable Kakashi. "I've even got a plant in here. Somewhere. Coffins don't have plants. Especially not cactuses."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "I mean, you don't even have a couch for me to sleep on."

She peered on into the gloom. The dim hallway leading off from the living area had three doors. One, the only door that was opened – the tiny guest bedroom, she thought – was completely lined with bookshelves, Kakashi's personal library. Probably consisting of porn only.

So, that left one bathroom and one master bedroom. And only one bed in all of Kakashi's practically palatial apartment.

"Where do I sleep _at all_, Kakashi?" The thought of her promised comfortable bed (which, in reality, had not been promised at all, he'd offered 'his apartment', no mention of sleeping or beds) being ripped away from her tired and inebriated body was not a pleasant one.

"You can have my bed, of course," his eye creased. She thought more and more solidly that was his way of mockery. "I wouldn't invite a beautiful woman to my apartment without a plan of where she would sleep."

His voice was dripping with a biting lack of innuendo that whipped and laughed at Sakura's swiftly evaporating confidence.

"I've got some extra blankets and pillows somewhere, or at least a rug or something, I can make up a bed in the living room. It's a fine sacrifi-OOMPH!"

And Kakashi had been cut off by a particularly strong arm around the waist that was currently dragging him up and over a hard shoulder with the force of a group of strong men – not a tiny girl – to his bedroom.

Kakashi noted that her shoes were purple, and not blue, as all the blood drained from his toes into his head.

"There's no way you invited me to your apartment out of absolute pity so strong you'd sleep on your floor for me," Sakura snarled, her voice so acidic it turned the jug of vinegar under Kakashi's sink to ammonia.

"You know, that's no reason for you to have to sleep on the floor yourse-OOMPH!"

And Kakashi had been thrown – literally – while upside-down onto his bed by his cute little student, which knocked the wind out of him worse than the shame of being lifted up like a stuffed animal by a girl.

And she promptly threw herself in after him, swaddling the two of them up in Kakashi's shuriken patterned quilt and puppy patterned sheets so that neither could easily escape.

And she fell asleep right after that with the words 'little girl' mumbling off her lips and her behind pushed into Kakashi's crotch and absolutely no room for any argument with their sleeping arrangements.

And Kakashi was okay with it, and he was unconscious minutes later. Not that he thought deeply about the pulsing erection the whole ordeal had given him when he had the mind to do so, or the fact that his young friend was ramming her butt into it and the fact that ninja pants were loose and allowed for movement and that meant erections were the absolute most obvious in them.

It was the butt that did it, he said to himself. Just to soothe his conscience.

* * *

Pure, unadulterated sunshine swept through miniblinds and onto a warm, pinecone-scented comforter. Sakura awoke from her pleasant, sexual dream and smiled and yawned and rubbed sleep-goo from her eyes and stretched up and out and stopped mid-everything when she felt the erection inching up her back and the hand on her breast and the moany, sleepy sigh in her ear.

Sakura was terrified.

She squirmed in Kakashi's firm arms – she really, really hoped and prayed to all the gods that she wasn't actually in Kakashi's arms in Kakashi's bed in Kakashi's apartment – and wiggled herself around to face a cloth-covered neck. And she saw a peek of a riff of shocking silver and a halfway undone forehead protector and a scarred eye, all settled above a dark mask.

Sakura was even more terrified, because it was morning and she was in Kakashi's apartment, in his _bed,_ – with Kakashi, of all people! – and she didn't remember what had happened last night. A night where'd she'd been drunk and _anything_ could have happened. She waited until her more rational, logical side kicked in before pinning down erroneous observations, like the fact that it was Kakashi.

She used her arms, half pinned to her body by blankets, to feel up and down her torso. Slinky black dress, still on. She squirmed more, trying to feel for her underwear, just in case, when a warm, warm arm reached and pulled her flush against the chest she was trying so desperately to escape.

And the moment was almost tender, with her face buried into Kakashi's neck, and his arms wrapped around her body under their blankets, hands resting at the very base of her back. His breathing was deep and slow, slow through his mask, and he smelled like musk and stale beer. And pinecones.

And she almost was relaxed, because she and Kakashi hadn't had sex and it was alright, and there would be no awkward morning to look forward to when he woke up.

But then Kakashi moaned again, louder, closer to consciousness, and pushed his erection against her firm stomach and slithered his hands down to squeeze her butt, and fucking _moaned again _– and Sakura really didn't find that attractive at all – and then he woke up.

The nerve of him.

"Morning, Sakura," said he with his hands all over her butt. "I hope you haven't got a headache, you did drink more than a full bottle of sake last night, you know."

He was awake – wide awake. And his hands kneaded and his penis pulsed.

"I've got some aspirin in the bathroom, and I can make you tea and rice, a light breakfast," Kakashi paused. "Are you alright? You're looking a tad pale, Sakura."

Sakura screamed in sheer and absolute horror.

* * *

Sakura stood under the stuttering spray of the shower, the temperature half scorching, half ice. She scrubbed her tired hair with tired palms full of anonymous male-type shampoo. She rubbed her hands and frothy, sudsy body wash over her slim curves and bones and perky breasts. She scratched her blunt fingernails down her back and across her shoulder blades in a futile attempt to forget the morning's so-far happenings by simply tearing off her epidermis.

She'd fainted, like a love struck teenager presented with some heathen pop idol. She'd fainted in her teammate, her fellow shinobi, her beloved ex-sensei's arms. And he'd shaken her awake, gently, gently, and suggested she take a shower while he made some breakfast.

The last she'd checked, he'd still sported a boner. Not that she'd checked. Seriously, it'd been pushed up against her stomach. It'd been impressive, too, how was she supposed to miss it?

Sakura ripped out a sizeable clump of pink hair, because tearing away dead protein and melanin was a surefire way to end all synapses in one's brain.

Kakashi poked at the eggs in the tiny frying pan. He wasn't accustomed to making egg_s _plural simply because no one ever ate at his apartment. He would have had only dishware and cutlery for one person if he'd had his way. But of course, Genma had made some huge fuss about being drunk and kicked out of his apartment by his girlfriend and what on earth was _he _supposed to eat off of when he needed to stay over for long periods of time?

So Kakashi had _obtained_ a set of fine, foreign-import porcelain china, with gold gilding the rounded edges and flowers spotting the whole thing, along with a massive set of high quality forks, salad forks, dessert forks, coffee spoons, tea spoons, soup spoons, spoon spoons and a vast array of knives for cutting different sorts and textures of roasts and steaks. Just to show up men with girlfriends who were really scary.

He himself often ate out of chipped mugs with disposable chopsticks, whenever on earth he was home (he usually dined out, was on a mission, or ate with Genma et al.). This china – super expensive stuff, too – was only for special occasions. That had never occurred before today.

And, Kakashi mused as he speared oven toasted bread with a seafood fork, would probably never happen again.

Thank the gods, he was always terrible with company.

* * *

Sakura didn't know what she was supposed to wear. She'd ran like a streak of nude lightning into Kakashi's bedroom – a three foot dash – with only what looked to be a ragged hand towel camouflaging her jiggly bits. She'd slammed the door pretty hard, too, but she doubted Kakashi would notice.

What _did _girls who were stranded in a man's apartment supposed to wear the night after some ridiculous drunken rendezvous? The evening's attire?

Sakura cast the rumpled black a dubious look. She wandered over to pick it up and sniff it. A mélange of eau de cigarette, stale liquor and vomit, with undertones of her deodorant, rose up to grace her nose.

The man's pajamas? Sakura doubted Kakashi _owned _pajamas. Or any casual sort of clothes whatsoever. She suspected, rather, that he had seven different identical ninja uniforms. Like day-of-the-week underwear.

The man's work uniform? Sakura didn't really want to wear Kakashi's day-of-the-week underwear, even if that did encompass more than underthings.

Sakura, who was now pondering the merits of fashioning a toga from pillowcases and sheets, held together with the cactus spines of Mr. Ukki (who was in fact located on the windowsill above Kakashi's bed), was broken from her reverie with a knock and a:

"Sakura, I ran to your apartment while you were in the shower and grabbed some clothes for you."

Kakashi stared at the flakes of cracked paint on his doorframe. Dandruff, or room temperature snow, peeled down and dotted his carpet. Sakura packed a mighty door-slam when she wanted to. For all he knew, that was whenever she was naked. For now, though, she was silent with what he presumed to be great gratitude in the shadow of his good deed. He rapped his knuckles on the door again.

"I brought you a dress," he elaborated. "And a thong. It's lacy and –"

Sakura squealed like a monkey (roared like the queenly lion) from inside his bedroom, "HOW'D YOU GET INTO MY APARTMENT, YOU CREEP?"

"Your roommate, who is a very nice girl, very complimentary, let me in," came Kakashi's voice, as unhesitant and unabashed as always. "She sends her regards and wants you to "dish" to her later. No thanks for the clothing, hm?"

A low, hoarse, growl of rage – seemingly unmuffled by the thick wood of the door – preceded Sakura nearly ripping the door off its hinges in her haste to get her clothes, slamming it shut again at the speed of light.

Ripping the door open while wearing no clothes.

Kakashi's eye creased, and he turned back to the kitchen and their breakfast.

Sakura, behind the door, had calmed. He'd brought her one of her favorite casual dresses, a buttercup yellow sundress in a crisp, flowy cut. He'd also brought her a pair of Ino's "sexy" underwear, which, all things considered, was probably Ino's doing in the first place. Who wore zebra printed lace in thong format _but _Ino? There was also no bra, which was also most likely Ino's doing.

She stepped into the skimpy underwear and wriggled her slim form into the dress. And she braced herself and took in a solid breath and a whiff of warm bread and strong tea.

She inched out of the bedroom, suddenly shameful.

"Sorry I yelled at you and almost broke your door," she apologized to Kakashi's back.

"Hey, no worries!" He turned around and revealed his aproned front. "Not every day your old mentor gets flashed, all is forgiven. Also, I apparently had no rice, so it's eggs and toast."

And Sakura just _had _to forgive him in turn, he was wearing a pink gingham apron. Poor man.

"Kakashi, why are you wearing an apron to make toast?"

Kakashi smirked – maybe. "Safety? Just trying to lighten the mood, Sakura."

"Oh," Sakura slid into the lone chair and stared blankly at Kakashi's decadent plates. "Entertain often?"

He plopped dry toast onto her plate with a pair of fancy tongs made for prying apart the claws of a certain specie of crab, "Absolutely."

She snorted before tearing ravenously into her toast, forgoing the bowl of eggs entirely. Crumbs decorated her face and hair and the areas within a two foot radius of her mouth. Kakashi handed her a paper napkin.

Sakura was then too busy combusting and scolding herself to see Kakashi leave and come back with another foldable chair. She narrowed her eyes at his own untouched toast before taking a welcome slurp of tea. She'd closed her eyes in appreciation for a fraction of a fraction of a second, which was apparently enough time to pull down a mask, bite, chew, swallow, and pull a mask back up – judging from the mouth-shaped chunk of bread missing from Kakashi's breakfast.

"No fair!" she whined, gaping at his gutsiness in denying her a view at his face.

"I didn't think you'd be the type to deny the host nourishment, Sakura," Kakashi responded delicately.

Sakura scoffed and huffed and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "I mean, we _slept together_, don't you think you can let your guard down around me? Relax, you know?"

Kakashi's thought process had entirely derailed at that imagery, his mental train a smoking pile of cars and coal and fire and dead passengers and even more ferocious explosions impending. Sleeping with Sakura.

Yeah. Right.

And Sakura, he observed, was as innocent as ever, completely oblivious to her innuendo – even though it was nearly too blatant to be considered innuendo. Or was she? And in no time at all, all of Kakashi's mental barriers were up and protecting and watching Sakura's every move, her munches of toast and crumb coating and yellow dress and cute boobs.

"I mean," Sakura trailed on into increasingly dangerous territory. "You talked to me yesterday about how I needed to pull the stick out of my ass, but maybe you're the one with the problem."

Very dangerous territory.

She divided the bowl of scrambled eggs evenly among their two plates. She let the delicate metal of her fork drag slightly across the porcelain rose of her dish underneath the soggy yellow protein.

Kakashi leaned back onto the rear legs of his chair, his arms crossed, and appraised Sakura beadily.

"You think _I've_ got a problem with being uptight?" he queried, only slightly surprised with her boldness. Sakura was complex – the calculus to his addition; sometimes doubting herself, sometimes not, sometimes gracious, sometimes petty. She also apparently had the gall to throw his words back into his face. Interesting.

"Even more so than you do?" his voice was light as he continued, but his tone was akin to lead.

Sakura scowled, and scowled even harder when she noticed he'd eaten half his eggs in the downtime of their friendly banter. Sneaky old man.

"Way more than I do," Sakura sneered. "I'm just a workaholic, you've been dodging letting people in for as long as I've known you. Probably longer."

Kakashi wished he was young enough to roll his eyes in exasperation. Or was at least as youthful as one could be to do so without looking like a fool. Like Sakura. Long after the age of twelve, she could portray perfect irritation – the quintessential mix of woman and girl. He envied her, really.

A study in the right amount of everything.

Maybe that's why he wanted her to live her life before she was as completely jaded as he was. He couldn't bear to see her make the mistakes he had made until he'd been 16.

Maybe that's where his proposition came from. Not from the fact that she was nice and cute and potentially fun to have around.

"Sakura, let's make a deal."

Kakashi was, in Sakura's real opinion, extremely cool.

If Sakura had been asked what shinobi of the Leaf she admired the most, whom she most greatly emulated, she would have said Tsunade only because that is what was expected of a former apprentice to say. Secretly, she thought the fifth Hokage drank too much and yelled too loudly and lacked control in foreign relations and (dare she even say it?) some basic healing operations. Kakashi was everything in moderation, only swathed in a blanket of mystery. The perfect ninja, completely under wraps. Just as a ninja should be.

Sakura knew about his past, about his father's 'treason' , saving a teammate over success in a mission. And she knew of the team he'd been on, under the tutelage of Naruto's father, obtaining his Sharingan from the crushed skull of his dearest friend. She thought she could see that influence in how he spoke of teams, of the importance of teamwork; she could see his experiences breathing through every pore in his body.

She knew that she knew next to nothing about him, really. What his real hobbies were (besides read porn), who his friends were (besides characters in his porn), what his motivations were (besides to live long enough to read all the porn in the world). He was aloof and committed and an incredibly excellent ninja and, for all Sakura knew, empty. All that she knew about Kakashi came almost entirely from their first meeting, as freshmeat new genin and violently impossible jounin sensei.

On second thought, maybe he didn't even like porn.

So she didn't know how to react when his next words came tumbling out of his mouth unannounced and entirely unexpected, like a friendly, sober man puking all over your ninja boots.

"I'll show you my face if you do something new," Kakashi twiddled his thumbs and scooped up his empty plate, his ultimatum delivered.

There was a pregnant pause.

"Are you even allowed to make bets on such a matter of village security?" Sakura quipped. Because believing him for a second would mean that it would absolutely not come true, no matter what.

"Village security," Kakashi's reply was a statement, no question to be found under layers of cynicism and smiles.

Sakura snorted (Kakashi was really beginning to wonder whether 'Pig' was an appropriately placed nickname), "Oh, all the women in this town are completely convinced that you posses the hottest face imaginable under that mask. Uncovering it is said to hypnotize women and drive them mad with lust."

The silver-haired man looked dubious.

Sakura snorted again, looking into the high left corner of Kakashi's kitchen, observing a sad cobweb.

There was a pregnant pause.

"We can say I've got questionable morals, then," Kakashi broke the silence. He launched himself back from his chair, picking up Sakura's plate on his way to the kitchen sink.

"It's certainly questionable to leave your 'bets' that open-ended," she said, her eyes little slits of a forest as seen through binoculars from a million billion miles away. "What do you _really_ want me to do?"

She didn't know how Kakashi could _see _half of the time, he always looked so smug.

"Tell me, Sakura," he began, still facing his sink, hands braced against the stainless steel bowl and faucet, looking out the window and onto the unpaved streets of Konoha. "Do you always go out drinking with just that Yamanaka girl?"

Sakura blushed and drowned her mouth and embarrassment in her tea again. "Yeah, and not often, either. I don't have a social life, remember?"

"Sakura, you have a pulse. So, why don't you come with me and my friends?"

Sakura dribbled cooling jasmine oolong down her chin and almost peed her pants, except she wasn't wearing any.

There was a pregnant pause.

"You're drooling again, can I take that as an affirmative?"

Oxytocin rushed in and out popped sextuplets.

Sakura tried to look indignant, which is really hard to do when you're choking.

"Why on earth would you invite some little kid to tag along with you?" Sakura spluttered. "I bet you just want to make fun of me in front of your friends. Or something."

"Definitely the dreaded 'or something'. Happened to me a lot when I was a young kid," Kakashi looked wise.

Cutting of Sakura's rumbling rebuttal, Kakashi continued. "I don't see you as a little kid, Sakura (absolutely not little at all). Who's a real kid at twenty two? I just want to see you break out of your comfort zone."

Sakura folded her arms over her thin chest and scrunched up her nose. She looked like Pakkun, Kakashi thought, but he'd learned long ago that women didn't take kindly to being compared to dogs.

"Probably want to see me get all drunk, too."

"Saw too much of that last night," he shot back without even shooting. Arguing with Kakashi was like slinging paintballs at a tree, it never threw them back, just dropped branches on your head.

Kakashi knew he'd won. Sakura knew he'd won, and she knew that he knew she knew he'd won.

Kakashi's eye creased.

"How about tomorrow?"


End file.
